it's summer!!!!

and has been for a while but now it's officially my summer vacation!!!! :oD i'm so happy!

since i last posted we had our annual 4th of july tex-mex fiesta and it went really well! it was the best one yet! i think about 25 people showed and we had veggie fajitas, refried beans, black bean and corn relish, cheddar, sour cream, chips, salsa and "faux-hitos" lol we didn't really have enough mint to make them taste right. can't wait to get back to the states and have a good one! :o) anyway, i think we'll carry on this 4th of july fiesta tradition once we get back to the states! it's a great time!

i haven't done a whole lot since then. i was mainly focused on winding up the end of the semester. it was mostly spent not teaching lol i had one week where all the classes wanted to "self-study" for their final exams, then a week where i supervised the final exams, then a week where all the classes wanted to recouperate from taking exams by watching movies lol i tried to teach a few of the classes after exams and it just wasn't happening. they were impossible to teach. so yeah! easy last few weeks!

my co-t really got to me by the end of it though. i was getting to the point where i just couldn't handle her any longer. i avoided her at all costs and when i did have to interract with her i just tried to zone her out. sounds horrible but if you knew her you'd understand. one day i spent 30 mins. straight trying to explain a problem to her that i was having with my computer and she still didn't understand. i know that this had nothing to do with her english ability because it's a very simple problem and i was able to explain it to two other teachers- one with good english and one with no english and they both understood me just fine. she just has a brain problem! lol sad but true.

anyway- she actually asked me- can i call you OFTEN over the summer? and i'm like- maybe not OFTEN...lol i told her i wasn't going to be in mokpo that much but i'm sure she'll try calling me daily. i'm going to avoid her by never answering the phone. if jens is home he can answer it and if it's her he can say i'm not here. i just have to have a good long break from her so i can get through another 4 months with her next semester.

on another note- we're going to seoul next thurs.! we're just gonna eat lots of western foods and go to what the book. then on the 26th we fly to japan! i'm really excited! i'm so glad we're getting to spend more time there. it's such an awesome country! i wish we could have lived and taught there but it's just so freaking expensive! cheapest hotel we could find was over $100 a night! luckily most of the time we'll be staying with our friend kacie that we went to uni with. the only time we'll have to stay in hotels is when we want to take excursions outside tokyo. we're going to hakone for one night (near a nice lake with a view of mt. fuji) and nikko for two nights (temples). we'll also see our uni friend, erin and my high school friend anne and her husband martin while we're there so that'll be really cool. i know so many people in japan! lol the main things we want to do in tokyo are see temples/shrines, go to museums, go to akibahara (video game mecca), shop, see a sumo wrestling match, stop by harajuku and see some cosplayers again and eat wonderful food! aahh i can't wait! :o)

AS SOON AS we get back to korea we'll be meeting up with ben and vivienne!!!! another exciting summer event! i'm so happy we got some of our friends to come visit us in korea before we go :o) they'll be here from aug. 5th-19th. we're gonna spend time in mokpo, gwangju, jeju island and seoul. i think going to jeju with them will be the nicest. we're gonna take our scooter and once we're there they can rent a scooter too and we can drive all around the beautiful island, go to beaches, see our favorite temple in korea, etc. eeeeee!!!! so fun!

only thing i'm bummed about is i have to go back to the work the DAY AFTER they leave! it's like BAM summer over! :o( i won't even have time to plan anything. i hope i don't have to teach lessons the first week. guess i'll just start with "how was your summer?" lol and a review of the rules cuz god knows they will have forgotten everything by the time they come back. but! it'll be my last full semester in korea! :o) then i just have a loooong winter break and two months of teaching and i'm home!

i've already put a countdown on facebook lol i think it's something like 281 days lol

but i'm not dreading the rest of my time here. i'm going to enjoy it. it'll be great to show ben and vivienne around and then once the holidays get here i'll have fun doing holiday related lessons, having parties, etc. it'll be my last halloween, thanksgiving and christmas in korea! i'm not sure what we'll be doing for halloween. usually there's a huge party at p club but i dunno who's planning it this year. i would but i dunno if i really wanna do something on that scale. it'd be nice to have a smaller party at my apt. we'll see. as for thanksgiving i definitely want to do a small thing with just close friends this year and jens and i are already planning a christmas sing-a-long at our place- complete with wassail and xmas goodies Po: mmmm i love xmas time!

we're planning on going to se asia for all of jan. and feb. but we've gotta work out some things with jens's school first. they want him to do a winter camp but jens might be able to get out of it by doing some other things for them during the semester like extra classes, teachers classes, etc. i'm hoping that'll work out because it'd be really nice to have the 2 full months in se asia. we'd like to go to cambodia, laos, thailand, malaysia and singapore. jens's parents may even meet us out there for a couple weeks which would be cool.

ah! i love traveling! i hope once we move back to the states that it's not too long before we can travel somewhere again. i still wanna go back to france. but i wanna see a lot of the u.s. too! right now i'm reading the lost continent: travels in small-town america by bill bryson and it just makes me wanna take a long random road trip in the states. the u.s. is so HUGE! there's so much to see! i hope i get to see every state in my lifetime. that'd be awesome.

ok well i'm gonna go now. may be a while before i update again. have a great summer!